A spot to highlight my Triton sailboat, her sailing adventures and restoration challenges. For those of you smart enough to run from a total 'gut-job' restoration but like to follow the miseries of those less wise, I hope I can provide you with some entertainment.

Saturday, July 6, 2013

So far so good. To date, I have not missed a weekend overnight stay on Jenny this season.

Fine drinks in the harbor every evening...

And scrumptious breakfasts every morning...

Not a bad life.

I have even managed to continue with some small projects. I have bits and pieces under the varnish brush at home when the weather permits and I got tired of prying open the access doors-that-don't-have-hinges-yet so I just drilled some finger holes. Crude but very effective. The latches are installed but I have held off on the hinges until I can get the final coats of satin varnish on the panels.

I have even managed to do some sailing...

Yes, that is in fact my assymetrical spinnaker finally in action. It took a bit of time to work out and I definitely need to ask some friends how to get it under control but when I do finally manage to get the sail up it is beautiful. Sailing under the assymetrical spinnaker has been a lot of fun.

I love my awning that I had made for me by Withum Sailmakers two years ago.

The only issue I have with it is that the stiffening poles are over six feet long which made stowing the awning on the boat rather challenging. This year I bought some stainless steel tubing, cut them into 4 inch lengths and put a little dent in the middle. Then I cut the stiffening poles into managable lengths and used the short sections of tubing to assemble them back to full length. Now the awning stows into a two foot length. Much more manageable I believe.

And then, in preparation for final rigging of the wind vane, I took a good close look at my tiller head.

I think I found where the slop was coming from...

A friend offered to sell me a very nice Triton bronze tiller head fitting but I thought I could save some money by simply drilling out and installing some lubricated bushings instead. The bushings only cost be $3. The drills and reams to make the holes cost me... about $120.

And then I found out the drill press I planned on using (owned by a kindly friend) had a bent shaft which sort of negated the idea of using those nice reams (the larger one cost about $55). A second drill press offer also fell through so in the end I decided to drill by hand.

That sort of worked, mostly, but not very well. It turns out the larger ream needed a 5/8 inch chuck which was bigger than the hand drill I had. I felt very manly gripping the ream with my bare hands and turning by hand - two hours and a bit of sweat later I had reamed out the holes - the fitting was aluminum after all, not something hard like steel.

I was felling very tough and masculine as I drilled out my final hole and then... the drill bit caught, twisted, and broke the tiller head fitting.

So I have a desperate plea in to my friend for that nice bronze fitting. If that doesn't work out I know of a Triton I can raid for parts but I will have to admit, a bronze tiller head fitting would look mightly sharp.

So no sailng for the rest of this weekend.

Other than the little issue with the tiller head, the windvane is close to being operational and getting that going should be exciting. I have the blocks I need to route the tiller lines. Two of the blocks need to be mounted on the aft deck so I won't install them until the fall when I can drill and fill the mounting holes properly. The two forward blocks will mount low below the cockpit coamings. That should happen "soon-ish". For this summer using just the two blocks will cause the tiller lines to occupy a good amount of the cockpit but I think I can live with that for the rest of this season.

And that is that. Jenny is being used every weekend, as much as a place to have a picnic and hang out as opposed to regular sailing. She seems happy. I know I am happy. Life is good. Hopefully, I will have a working steering system soon and I can put down my drinks and hearty breakfasts and break in that spinnaker a bit more.